Top Nine… Memorable Movie Babies

No one puts these babies in a corner. In a special Ross v Ross list in honour of one of us becoming a dad in recent days (clue: it’s not the person writing this post), here are the best blubbing beauties in cinematic history. Just remember to clean up after them.

9. Three Men And A Baby (1987)

Nothing scares cute little Mary. Not being lumped on the doorstep of Sam from Cheers, Magnum PI and police cadet Mahoney. Nor being involved in a drug sting. Nor being haunted by a ghost boy. Leonard Nimoy directed Three Men And A Baby. That is a sentence I never tire of writing.

8. Where The Heart Is (2000)

Someone once told me there was a movie in which Natalie Portman gave birth to a baby in a Wal-Mart while living there. I told them to quit messing me about. But sure enough, it turned out to be true. The baby in this film is called Americus, that’s how awesome she is.

7. Labyrinth (1986)

If you were a baby dressed in a Where’s Wally? outfit and trapped among a gaggle of goblins and a helmet-haired David Bowie, you’d think you might leave a few more packages in your nappies than normal. But none of those things faze little Toby, who has a ball while Jennifer Connelly runs around trying to save him. The baby’s character shares the same name as the actor because he wouldn’t respond to anything else – he was ‘Freddie’ in the original script. The actor was Toby Froud, son of Brian Froud, whose illustrations inspired the film.

6. The Hangover (2009)

Proof that all you need for a mega-comedy blockbuster is a baby with a pair of sunglasses on.

5. Willow (1988)

Poor Willow (Warwick Davis). He shows some great acting and acting chops here and gets upstaged by a red-headed Daikini baby. Oh, and some crap CGI two-headed dragon thingy.

4. Lemony Snicket’s A Series Of Unfortunate Events (2004)

What an underrated gem this film is. Unfortunately, it didn’t make enough money to warrant a flood of sequels, so we are just going to have to make do with what magnificent charms, scares and laughs it gave us. It takes a lot to upstage Jim Carrey with a fake beard and fake bald patch, but Sunny Baudelaire (played by two twins) manages it, thanks to her dry wit and huge gnashers. Not a baby to be trifled with.

3. Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Babies are often cute, but sometimes they can be a right pain. They cry. They wail. They crap all over the place. They are the spawn of Satan. We never find out if Rosemary’s baby is well behaved and eats all of his Farley’s Rusks or spits them out on the floor, but it’s fair to say he probably turns out to be a bit of a handful. Cheeky little devil…

2. Raising Arizona (1987)

No tot has ever looked cuter in a hoodie in the back of a car during a robbery. ‘Hang on Nathan, we gonna go pick up Daddy.’

1. Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)

Is Grosse Pointe Blank about guns and cool music? Or is it about the nature of existence and one’s place in this world? Either way, it’s got the cutest baby committed to celluloid in it. Try watching this and not going ‘aaaaaaahhh’. If you don’t, you have no soul.